


11 a.m.

by tj_teejay



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Episode: s01e10 Nelson v. Murdock, Gen, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 15:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6246256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tj_teejay/pseuds/tj_teejay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt’s day after the Night of Revelation—Foggy walking out on him—starts at 7 a.m. It’s not the best day he’s ever had, and that’s an understatement. A little post-1x10 reflective piece, and kind of a songfic for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jftYV-5rJiU">“11 a.m.” by Incubus</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	11 a.m.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Ash for the beta.
> 
> +-+-+-+-+

# 7 a.m.

The garbage truck beeps as it backs up, and Matt thinks about what he’s thrown away.

Everything is a struggle. Every movement, every breath, every thought. It isn’t just in the physical wear and tear—the scrapes and cuts and bruises. It goes deeper. So deep that stitches won’t hold it together. He’s hanging on the edge of the precipice with the hold beneath his fingers slowly crumbling.

He’s wanted to tell Foggy so many times. So many _fucking_ times. ‘Foggy, there’s something you should know about me.’ Or, ‘You know how I sometimes know things?’ It was never the right time. It would have _always_ been the right time. Because nothing is worse than this. Nothing is worse than Foggy walking out on him.

What if he could push rewind? He’d do it differently, make his actions count for something. Make Foggy a part of them, make him come along for the ride. Every hero needs a sidekick, right?

Except he’s never been that—a hero. It’s that blatantly anticlimactic ending to a mediocre B-movie. And now the credits traverse, signifying the end, but somehow he’s managed to miss the best part. Could they not go back to start?

What it always comes down to is his lack of courage for what should be the easiest thing, but really is the hardest. He should have just gotten his fucking act together and told Foggy before it was too late. He wishes with all his might Foggy would find it in his heart to forgive his indecision.

He’s been dubbed the man without fear once. But that’s not true. He fears this. Facing it alone without a safety net. No one to catch his fall, and this is worse. Because for as long as he’s known him, Foggy has always been there. No matter what, without fail. But even Foggy’s idealism had its limits. Matt realizes that now. And he wonders why, in the back of his mind, he always vaguely expected for it to happen, but was never prepared for how much it would actually hurt.

Then again, you're always first when no one's on your side. Why was this such a bad thing? Stick had hammered it into him that life would be easier if you didn’t have loved ones to leave behind. For the most part, the ride was thrilling and fun and just gave you that edge that would tip you down the slope with a whoop of unabashed excitement. He knew the day would come when he’d want off that ride.

He follows the garbage truck through the busy streets of Hell’s Kitchen. Its faint beeping lulls him into a dreamless slumber.

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# 11 a.m.

He wakes to the tune of Fran banging solid objects against her malfunctioning kitchen cupboard door in the apartment next to his. She’s been meaning to have it fixed for weeks if he can believe her angry mutterings.

His talking alarm clock tells him the time, and he wonders if Foggy thinks that by now he would be up. He moans and turns on his side to curl up as best as his aching body will let him. His bed sheets shade the heated choices he’s made. Or not made. Not making a choice is a choice in itself.

He wants Foggy to call, wants him to care, but this realization surprises him. He’s always prided himself on not needing anyone. On doing it all by himself, because that means he only has himself to care about. He doesn’t know how to handle this realization that it’s not just him anymore, and that he never truly understood this particular fact until Foggy had said it to him the night before.

How exactly did that happen? He’d never wanted that, and what did he find? He never thought he could want someone so much. Never thought he could want not to be alone the way he is now. But that’s how it is. Foggy’s not here, and he’s knee deep in that old fear he thought he’d long overcome.

It all comes back to his own fucking inertia. Could Foggy forgive his indecision? Could anyone? He is only a man, after all. Is he not allowed to make mistakes?

_Misspelling Hanukkah is a mistake! Attempted a murder is a little something else._

Attempted murder. That has a finality to it. Harsh undertones he never thought about. It’s a lawyer term. Daredevil doesn’t think in lawyer terms. He didn’t think in lawyer terms when he went to that warehouse. It was a means to an end, not a case to be tried in a courtroom. It’s ironic, he thinks, that Daredevil and courtrooms don’t mix.

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# 12 p.m.

His smartphone rings somewhere in the living room, rousing him to sluggish wakefulness. He raises a heavy head from his pillow. Who could it be? He tries to listen to the name that’s being read out, but it’s too muffled because reaching out with his sense takes effort. He hopes it’s Foggy.

It’s not. Of course it’s not. Because why would it be? Foggy walked out on him—disappointed and angry and disillusioned. Betrayed. Matt could hear it in his voice, in the barely hidden tears, in every vibration of Foggy’s being.

Foggy doesn’t walk out on people. Except he did. Because Matt has royally screwed it up, and he has only himself to blame. It would be so much easier if he was alone in this, because you’re always first when no one’s on your side.

The phone stops ringing. He thinks it was an unknown number, but it’s not like he paid close attention. His throat his is dry and his mouth parched. He fumbles around on the nightstand, but there’s only his alarm clock and the wooden box that holds his personal items.

Fuck this. Fuck all of this. He needs something to drink.

The trek to the kitchen is laborious and painful. The wound from the hook hurts like a motherfucker. He can’t quite keep the groan inside that tears from his throat as he reaches for a clean glass and fills it from the kitchen tap. The cold water he drinks barely brings any relief and adds to the frigid heaviness inside of him.

From the dining area, he surveys the battlefield. His sofa cushions and his blanket are on the floor. The black Daredevil outfit is lying crumpled in a heap in front of the couch, next to it used gauze pads and discarded medical supplies. The scent of disinfectant and blood is pungent in the air. He would have to get rid of the shirt. Possibly the pants, too.

His cane is next to the armchair that he still hasn’t fixed after the fight with Stick—one side of it being supported by a phonebook and White Pages. There are two bottles of beer on the floor. Foggy’s beer. A faint trace of Foggy’s sweat and aftershave clings to the backrest of the armchair where his jacket and tie had been draped before he snatched them up when he left.

Foggy left. It still hurts, and Matt wonders just how much he fucked this up. Could Foggy ever forgive him? Could he come back?

He should have fucking told him. Maybe not about everything, but at least about his senses. He’d never had the guts to do it, because, hell, everything had been fine. He’d pretended to be a regular blind guy, and Foggy had been totally cool with it.

The ride was fun while it lasted. But now he’s being shaken too hard and bumping uncomfortably against the padding of the car. The day has come that he wants off it. It had come and gone, in fact, and now he is shrouded in the smoldering embers of the aftermath.

A bone-deep sigh tumbles from his lips. Life will have to go on. He’s learned that much. Life always went on, and he knows that eventually, he'll need to pick up the slack and roll with the change. He thinks maybe he can start small. Clean up the mess. Eliminate the reminders. It might help.

Or it might not.

+-+-+-+-+

# 1 p.m.

An hour later, he finds that it very much does not.

The small effort of throwing away trash, picking up pillows, and throwing items into the hamper leave him completely spent and aching. The armchair with Foggy’s lingering scent is both a blessing and a curse, but it’s there, and he sinks into it.

His left cheekbone is throbbing. He doesn’t remember what from. One of Fisk’s punches, most likely. God, he fucked everything up. Not just Nobu and Fisk and Foggy. Everything is in ruins.

A sudden knock pulls him from his reverie. He’s out of the armchair before he even completes the thought that it might be Foggy. But it’s not. It’s Karen. He should have known from her floral perfume and the clicking of her heels walking up the steps outside. Except his universe doesn’t extend much beyond his apartment today. It barely extends beyond himself.

He hesitates. He doesn’t want to talk to Karen. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone except Foggy.

She keeps hammering on the door. Her voice sounds worried and pissed off at the same time. “Come on, open the door. I can’t get a hold of Foggy, and there’s nobody at the office. What the hell is going on?”

Yeah, what the hell _is_ going on? And if Foggy is not in the office, then where is he?

“Matt...”

Yeah, yeah, he’s coming. He owes her that, at least. She has every right to be worried. He considers her a friend.

There’s a short silence from her when he opens the door. She sizes him up. Takes in his battered and bruised face. “Oh my God,” she whispers. It’s an appropriate response.

He walks away.

“You look like shit.”

Yeah. No kidding. “Then I’m looking better than I feel.”

She closes the door and follows him inside. He gives his best blind man charade for her, even though he’s tired of it already.

There’s going to be question he won’t know how to answer. But Karen is here, and she cares, and he does fucking owe her some answers.

“We gonna sue?” she asks from the corridor. “We should sue. You know, whoever hit you, we should go after him, and, uh—”

The answers he can give her won’t satisfy her, because he knows she’s not stupid. But Foggy already got hurt, and he’ll be damned if he lets another person he cares about be sucked into the maelstrom.

So he gathers up all the energy and resolve he can find and fumbles to find his sunglasses on the kitchen counter.

Time to keep up appearances, like he’s practiced for all these years. Suck it up, Murdock, and pretend you’re the fraud you’ve shrouded yourself in for the better part of two decades.

Tolkien said it all too well.

_The road goes ever on and on..._

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End file.
